The Lake Guy talks “peak life” on the lakes

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https://www.wjfw.com/chat-with-ted/video_9691dfc6-232f-5404-8128-83a0ea1c7f49.html (segment 1)

https://www.wjfw.com/chat-with-ted-part-2/video_fd2045d9-d5da-5679-bd2d-fb1ad37dcb73.html (segment 2)

On Channel 12’s Up North@4 on July 9 I  talked about lakes at peak life. You can view the two segments at the links above — and here’s more on the topic.

There’s an old Rodgers & Hammerstein song about June. It’s got Virginia creepers huggin’ the bejeepers outa mornin’ glories, buds bustin’ outa bushes, and ev’ry lady fish wishin’ that a male would come and grab her by the gills.  June (and early July) on your lake are like that, life bustin’ out all over. Our lakes are never more alive that right now. You hear it in the gray hour before sunrise when a loon’s long three-note wail floats in through the porch screens, and birds call riotously from the trees.

The pleasant but coolish days of May are gone. Now in the lengthening daylight the sun’s direct rays infuse the water with energy. The lake responds. Everything grows, starting with the microscopic algae floating in the water. Through the miracle of photosynthesis, they use the sun’s rays to turn water and carbon dioxide into sugars, an energy source that eventually makes its way to the top of the food chain. The fish we catch for dinner owe their existence to those tiny algae cells, and ultimately the sun.

Aquatic plants grow explosively as the water warms. The bulrushes along our shoreline seem to change overnight from brown remnants of last year’s crop to luxuriant stands, a few green spears poking up between the pier boards. Elsewhere, from fleshy rhizomes buried in the sediment, water lily and spatterdock push up supple stalks, spread broad floating pads, and display showy blooms.  Mama mallards and hooded mergansers lead long strings of ducklings across the shallows and through the rushes. Painted turtles and snappers, finished with nesting, ply the waters, popping their heads up to sip the moist air. On sunny days, painters line up head to tail on logs along shore.

At evening, tiny white midge flies zig-zag over the water. Circular ripples appear as bluegills and crappies slurp them off the surface. Dragon flies dart about, vacuuming up those midges and buzzing mosquitoes. Whirlygig beetles make tiny, erratic V-shaped wakes.  The lakes’ human denizens are here to take it all in. At every house and cottage, the pier is installed, boats tied up alongside it, or parked on lifts with bright blue, red or green canopies. Canoes and kayaks lie on shore.

In the warming water, kids leap and splash joyfully from docks and rafts. Families embark on leisurely pontoon cruises. Screams rise as kids are towed on tubes behind motorboats. On any day a child may catch a first fish, hear a first loon call, watch a bald eagle soar, see for the first time a doe and a shy fawn emerge from the woods for a drink. Noelle and I await, toward the end of this month, another visit from our grandsons and one more chance to infuse them with Northwoods memories. Theirs will last longer than ours, but here in June we can lay that thought aside and celebrate the wonder of a lake at peak life.